


Dispatches from New Vegas

by ilcuoreardendo



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Adult Content, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Trade Caravans, Violence, dark themes, the legion - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-20
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-08 23:40:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/767436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilcuoreardendo/pseuds/ilcuoreardendo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the Mojave Wasteland, lives are routinely changed by a single bullet and Isa Reyes' life is no exception. A courier of no consequence...until she's ambushed on her way to deliver a package to the New Vegas Strip and left for dead in a small town cemetery. After being pulled out of her own grave by a strangely attentive robot, all she wants to do is find the man who tried to kill her, put a bullet between his eyes (turnabout is fair play, after all) and call it a day. But each step she takes seems to pull her deeper into the ongoing conflict between the NCR and the Legion.</p><p>11/6, <b>Chapter 2</b>: <i>Isa’s not half-surprised by what the woman reveals as she speaks. Anyone with a name like Sunny Smiles is bound to have a life that’s full of things that are everything but.</i></p><p>
  <i>It’s in the Irony Rule Book.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been sitting on this first chapter forever, tweaking and retweaking. I'm not certain I've got it right but I may never have it just right. I also have no idea what the update schedule will be for this thing. I have a lot of stuff drafted (including some later chapters) but I don't quite know where it's headed. But I hope you enjoy the beginning and, maybe, stick around for the ride.
> 
>  ** _February 2015:_** This fic is **not** abandoned. But it is on hold. I'm mucking about in other fandoms. And I started grad school last fall, so that's a big time suck. I'm still poking at this as I get the time. I may eventually get tired of perfectionism and post what I have.

 

 

 

 

 " _It was twenty past eleven when they walked out in the street…"  
_ \- "Big Iron," Marty Robbins

* * *

 

"…using the buildings as cover. Maybe even have a shooter on the roof of the Saloon," Isa finishes, the words thrown out as casually as one might talk about the weather, before re-launching her vicious campaign against the blood stain that just won't come out of the saloon floor.  _A lot of blood for a graze,_ she thinks.  _Townie should consider himself lucky Cobb's a shit shot_.

Cracking her back, Isa stands, tosses her cleaning rag toward the wash bin and only then notices the quiet that's settled over the main room of the Pioneer Saloon. Trudy's set aside her broom and is worrying a fingernail. Sunny, perched on the bar, looks thoughtful. And Isa mentally replays what she said and wonders when her life went completely pear shaped.

A week ago she'd woken up in Doc Mitchell's home, the taste of blood and soil in her mouth, a dull-knife pain in her head, and the world pulled out from under her like a tablecloth in a badly done New Reno magic act; she was the vase of flowers, tumbled, cracked, leaking water and littering leaves. How did she right herself?

Presumably, by getting back to business. And though she hasn't fully figured out what business she'll be getting back to—finding out who put the bullet in her head and  _why_ notwithstanding—she's pretty sure it doesn't involve planning gunfights against gangsters in a little desert town she'd never heard of before she'd been unceremoniously dumped in its cemetery.

She's a courier, not a tactician.

But the others seem to disagree.

"That sounds…" Trudy starts.

"Like it could work," Sunny finishes. "If we get everyone else on board and in their places 'fore the Gangers show up."

"Cobb said 'if they didn't have Ringo by 8 a.m.' I don't trust that  _cabron_  to his word, d'you?" Isa says.

Sunny shakes her head.

"Can we spare a spotter?" Isa asks. "Someone fast?"

"I know just the guy." Sunny grins. "I'll take care of it—you see about getting the armor and dynamite. And the stims!" And she's out the door, Cheyenne on her heels.

"'Tween you and me," Trudy says, watching the door swing shut, "I think that girl's been waiting for something like this to happen. Think she needs a little adventure every now and again."

"I think I'm full up on adventure, myself," Isa say. "Amazing what getting shot in to the head will do to a girl…." She forces back a sigh and flexes her shoulders, loosening the tension that has gathered there. It's time to go do battle with Chet.

A hand on her elbow makes her pause. Trudy's fixed her with one of  _those_  looks, the same one's Isa's mom used to get before some awkward conversation about boys or monthlies.

"What made you decide to get mixed up in this Ringo mess, anyway?"

"It's not just Ringo." She can still see the bruises on Trudy's arms where Cobb had gripped her.

Isa had been on her way back from the cemetery—after paying respects at her own grave—when she heard the muffled crackle-pop of gunfire coming from inside the saloon.

She'd slipped through the side door, found one of the regulars huddled in the hallway, a trail of blood leading from his leg back into the main room where Trudy was pressed up against the bar by a man in prison blues. One of his hands wrapped around Trudy's arm, the other went for a knife just as Isa put her gun to his temple and told him to get the fuck out of the saloon if he wanted to keep what brain he had.

If only she'd shot him then….

"You all won't give Ringo up. And they  _will_  burn this town to the ground to get to him. And…" she says, "I owe you. Granted, some of you more than others…."

"Chet," she and Trudy say together, laughing.

"Consider this my repayment."

 

* * *

 

 

 

Sunrise spills over the mountain edges and stains the pooled shadows, turns them a bruised violet.

Isa would appreciate it more if she hadn't been up on and off all night, kept awake by Easy Pete's snoring and the constant ache deep in her belly reminding her that someone—maybe several someones—might very well die because of her plan.

She meant what she said to Trudy. She owes this town. Doc Mitchell, for not giving her up for lost and for letting her sob (more than once, she's half-ashamed to admit) into his shoulder. Sunny, for the easy camaraderie and the way she didn't say a word the first time Isa fired a rifle at the geckos and nearly jumped out of her skin at the  _pop_ of the bullet, leaving Sunny and Cheyenne to fend off the little green monsters while Isa backed away with her hands over her ears and a throb in her temple. Trudy, for the way she reminds Isa of her own mother—15 years dead this year—and who keeps finding little tasks to keep her occupied and put some caps in her pocket.

And the idea of someone getting hurt…dying…because of her half-cocked plan….

At 4:30, she'd given up, pulled on her leather armor (half priced from Chett after she'd caught him trying to cheat her and threatened his manhood) and headed for the saloon.

Trudy—hair tied up in a scarf, dress rumpled—unlocked the door took one look at her and said "Coffee's on the bar, hon."

Now, it's nearing time and Isa's on her fifth cup—draining the dregs of the pot—when Sunny appears, armored up, gun and Cheyenne in tow.

"Spotter's in place," Sunny says. "So are the others. I'm about to get in mine."

"Easy escape routes?"

"We'll be fine." She winks. "Cheyenne, come."

Isa watches her disappear around the corner of the saloon. A few moments later, Ringo takes her place. His hair's askew and the shadows under his eyes have taken on a purple cast.

"These are from Pete," Isa says, handing over several sticks of dynamite.

"I owe—"

She holds up a hand, shakes her head. "We both survive? Then you can tell me you owe me."

"Got it." Ringo looks like he's about to say something else but he's interrupted by the yammer of a mechanical cowboy.

"Them Gangers is headin' this way. Better look sharp," Victor says and he's gone before Isa can blink, rolling on past the saloon.

_So that's Sunny's spotter_ , she thinks. At least he was serving some purpose other than giving her the jiggies. She had to agree with Doc, there was …something there. Something underneath all the circuits and wires.

Shaking her head, she sends Ringo running and calls Trudy to attention before taking her place behind the big rocks in front of the windmill, staying low and peering around the edge.

There's more than a handful of Gangers coming up the road. But they're not smart. They swarm together like mantises.

She spies Ringo slipping around the corner of Pete's house, pistol aimed.

The gunshot rings out. One of the Ganger's legs crumples and as they turn toward Ringo, who's disappeared behind the house again, Isa throws a clump of dynamite she's fixed together.

That explosion sends everything into chaos.

It could be minutes or hours later that the last shot is fired and the world goes quiet.

Keeping low, Isa edges out from behind her rock and takes stock of the bodies on the ground. Eight in all.

Ringo and the rest of the townsfolk are making their way out of hiding and she follows suit, cracking her back to ease the tension, shaking her head as if that'll knock the annoying ring out of her ears.

She's nearing the saloon when she spies the gleam of light, looks over to find one of the Gangers raising up on his side. His left arm is mangled beyond recognition, but the other—bloody and shaking—is pointing a pistol at her.

Two shots ring out.

Heat sears her shoulder as blood blooms on the Ganger's forehead and he collapses in the dirt.

On the roof of the saloon, Sunny rises to her knees, still pointing the gun at the dead man. And Isa, turning, catches her eye before the world spins and everything goes black.

 

 

* * *

 

"You seem to be making a habit of this."

This is the second time in a week that she's woken up to see Doc's face hovering over her.

And he's not getting any better looking.

"How are you feeling?"

Groaning, Isa sits up and sways. "When the room stops spinning, I'll let you know." She clicks her tongue, waves off his assistance and manages to swing her legs over the side of the bed. She doesn't fall. That's a plus. "Least I didn't get shot in the head this time."

Doc's eyebrows fly toward his nonexistent hair-line. "Barely got shot at all, matter of fact. Took a graze to your arm that just needed a stitch and a patch. Dehydration's what sent you tumbling, girl." He frowns and hands her a dirt-smudged glass of water. "Thought I told you to watch that before you ran out of here."

"Hard to guzzle water when you're plotting an ambush and then dodging gunfire, Doc." She sips and ignores the exasperated look on Doc's face. "Look…thanks. For getting me on my feet. Again. And…just. Thank you."

Despite her gratitude, it takes a number of placating statements, several reflex tests, and a series of circuits around the room before Doc's convinced she's fit to walk out his front door and that happens  _only_  after he watches her slow-sip down the rest of her water and makes her promise to wait  _at least_  another 24 hours before she decides to do anything crazy, like travel the I15.

Which is fine. Really. She might hole up for a few more days. The very idea of trying to get to Primm right now is exhausting. And besides, she still needs to supply up. Idly, she wonders if the Powder Gangers had anything useful on them when they went  _kaboom_.

Outside, the sun dips toward the horizon and the air is full of dust and the faintest smell of gunpowder. In front of the saloon, Sunny is supervising the clean up; she's got a couple of townsfolk loading the Ganger's bodies—well, what's  _left_  of them—into a rough-hewn wooden wagon, and another making neat piles out of the ordnance.

Isa groans as she spots Chet hovering over Sunny's shoulder. Even from this distance, she can see the look on his face, like a kid whose birthday's come early, as he looks over the growing pile of goods.

She wonders if she'll be able to talk him out of any of it as payment for services rendered, thinks about how the little  _pendejo_  tried to charge her full price for ripped leathers, and ghosts her fingers over the gun on her hip.

She may very well have to shoot him.

 

 

* * *

tbc...

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Goodsprings, late night, the courier's send off. 
> 
> _Isa’s not half-surprised by what the woman reveals as she speaks. Anyone with a name like Sunny Smiles is bound to have a life that’s full of things that are everything but._
> 
> _It’s in the Irony Rule Book._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got tired of perfectionism. So here's the second chapter. Chapter 3 may be just as long in coming because it's not drafted fully yet. I have a few future chapters drafted, but I have to figure out where they come in (and where this story is going - I have an idea, but it's not solid, yet). 
> 
> **Warnings** for rape. It's in a flashback and it's not detailed, but it's there.

* * *

 

Flames flicker through the eye sockets of the gecko skull someone had tossed among the tender of the campfire. The skull looks positively demonic.  
  
And it’s staring at her.

Isa, shuddering a little, jabs at the thing with the length of broken crutch she found nearby, watches it tumble onto its crown, staring out into the darkness of the desert.

Wiping sweat from her brow, unsure if it’s from the flame or the sudden rise in humidity, she settles back against one of rough wooden benches and takes a deep breath. Myriad wasteland smells rise on the wind: the green springs, acrid sulfur, meat gone to rot and around it all that rare sharp sweetness of a coming storm.

She can see thunderheads way out past the Yangtze Memorial, lightning rolling in their heavy bellies. For a moment, she considers heading back to town.

In the next, she changes her mind.

It’s too much effort to move.

Hell it’s nearly too much effort to sit here. Every time she shifts her back complains from the hauling and organizing she’d done for Chet earlier in the day. Between that, the Bloatfly sting on her leg, the new bullet graze on her arm, and the damnable stitch-itch on her forehead, she’s in pretty sorry shape. The road to Primm isn’t going to be pleasant.

 _Get over it_ , she scolds herself, prodding the fire absently, _there are much sorrier states to be in_. The cloying scent of freshly turned earth falling across her face is still far too present in her mind. _At least you get to hit the road one more time._

A rock tumbles into view, hits the log across from her with a _thunk_ , and her gun is in her hand with barely a thought. The intruder stumbles back a step and says, “S’just me!”

“ _Mierda_. Sunny! Give a girl some warning next time.” Isa leans back but doesn’t put the gun down until Sunny steps into view.

“I did. You were a million miles away.” Sunny drops onto the flat ground next to her, resting her rifle against the log. “What’re you doin’ out here? I thought Pete had been putting you up.”

“He did. He was.” Isa frowns. “Nice of him. But the man snores like a Deathclaw with a deviated septum. I get better sleep with the geckos.”

"What about Doc? He's got the room."

“Don’t want to impose any more than I already have.” Isa says, jabbing at the fire again, sending sparks into the breeze. Shelooks into the darkness for Sunny's furry, four legged shadow. “Where’s Cheyenne?”

"Charming a Brahmin steak out of Trudy." Sunny grins then and glances around, as though she’s about to reveal a secret, before pulling two bottles of scotch, glistening pale gold in the firelight, from the inside pocket of her tattered duster. “Trudy’s special stock. You’re out of here tomorrow. I thought you could use a good send off. Especially after dealing with Chet.”  
  
Isa grimaced. Even after she'd hobbled out of Doc Mitchell's house, sporting a fresh bullet graze and a pounding headache, and helped pull supplies off the Powder Ganger corpses _and_ assisted Chet in doing a completely new inventory, the general store owner had still been less than willing to part with some of the better gear, as they'd discussed, in exchange for services rendered.

That was before she’d promised to make his intimate parts acquainted with the business end of her knife if he didn't uphold his end of the bargain.  
  
“You heard that?” Isa says, trying not to grin.  
  
“The whole town heard that!” Sunny laughs and unscrews the bottle top.  


**# # #**

Three hours and one and a half bottles of scotch later, the sky has cleared, the threatening storm having moved off to the North East, and Isa lies flat on her back next to the fire, head pillowed on her palms.

She and Sunny have gone around in conversation. Comparing horror stories about childhood and the trail. Giggling over bad lovers—“You and the doc? Oh hell, Sunny, I didn’t need to know _that_ ”—and irascible clientele—“…apparently a one-of-a-kind sex toy. But a package starts beeping like a frag mine, I’m not holding on to it. _Dios_ , but he was pissed”—and now they’ve fallen into a companionable silence.

Isa’s trying to find the constellations she remembers learning about as a kid. But it’s difficult. The stars keep moving on her. She finally gives up chasing them around the sky and closes her eyes, listening to the pop-crackle of the fire and Sunny’s soft and listless voice beside her, singing some song Isa doesn’t know.

 _But just before the dawn, I awake and find you gone…I can’t help it…I can’t help it…if I cry…_  
  
“Sunny?” Isa says. The other woman stops singing, but keeps up a steady hum under her breath. “Is this where you thought you’d end up?” _All right, Reyes_ , she thinks. _You’re cut off. You know too much scotch makes you philosophic._

There’s a snort, then a grumble and a clank as Sunny rolls into a sitting position and kicks the empty scotch bottle into the fire. “Oh yeah. Playin’ Sheriff to a no-horse town. Spendin’ my days runnin’ off geckos, nights breakin’ up drunken brawls. Stoppin’ bloodshed ‘tween Chet and Trudy every time a new supply caravan comes through because that tight ass can’t get it through his head that we’re not gonna let him have the same monopoly on booze and meds as he’s got goin’ in weapons and armor.”

“Ever think about leaving?”

Sunny looks at her. “And goin’ where?”

Isa doesn’t have an answer.

“North?” Sunny shakes her head. “There’s nothing but rubble and tribals; some friendly, some who’d sooner sacrifice you as look at you. West? Been there, born there. Took me years to get out of the NCR…and now they’re movin’ in. East? Have to get through Legion territory…not looking to learn that lesson again, not—” Her voice cuts out like someone has flicked off a radio.

“Sunny?”

Sunny draws up her legs, folds her arms on her knees, rests her chin on her arms and rolls her head to look at Isa. In that position, in this light, she looks like a child.

“I didn’t plan on endin’ up here. It’s like most things in life. You don’t plan on them…”

Isa doesn’t want to pry. No, that’s a lie. She doesn’t want to seem like she’s prying. And she’s usually pretty good at that, but the scotch has cast a viscous web across her brain.

“You don’t have to…you know…talk, if you don’t want.” _Real eloquent, Reyes._

But Sunny seems not to hear her.

And Isa’s not half-surprised by what the woman reveals as she speaks. Anyone with a name like Sunny Smiles is bound to have a life that’s full of things that are everything but.

It’s in the Irony Rule Book.

Sunny’s beginnings aren’t unlike Isa’s own, joining up with a caravan at a young age and heading off to find her fortune, but they diverge soon after because Sunny fell for one of the guards in her caravan and it wasn’t too long before the two of them broke off to start their family, make their own way.

“Needles seemed like as good a place as any to settle for a while,” Sunny says, flicking pebbles toward the fire. “On the tail end of the NCR and in the middle of some good trade routes, so Jackson and I’d be able to stay off the roads but keep business goin’ until Kora was a little older.”

Sunny looks at Isa. Her eyes are dark and deep and Isa thinks they’re seeing something other than a drunk and worn courier. “We didn’t know anything about the Legion. This was before Hoover Dam. But, there were… rumors…comin’ out of the East.” Sunny shakes her head. “They were tall tales, ghost stories…things you’d talk about around the camp’s fire.”

Until the night the ghost story came true.

Isa closes her eyes as Sunny continues. And that’s a mistake. Because she’s always had too active an imagination and this just makes it easier for her to visualize everything Sunny recounts.

The throat clogging fear at the sounds of your neighbors screams; the shattering glass, the battering down of your own door and the way your three year old daughter howls when you’re ripped away from her. The coyote eyes of a man who’s used to taking what he wants and the useless prayer that slides through your mind that you’ll survive this, that your daughter won’t remember the image of her mother being fucked against a wall by a man who wears the hide of an animal like a second skin, and smells like blood and fresh death.

“Then Jackson was there,” Sunny says, “and the man on me was dead and I’m not even sure how it happened. I can only remember Jackson pushing Kora at me and telling us to run. And we did. I looked back once and the town was up in flames.”

Isa shifts, stretching her numb leg in front of her. She wants to ask…and she doesn’t.

“No food,” Sunny says. “No weapons. I knew where there was an NCR outpost; it was a full day’s walk. We st-stumbled on a nest of Cazadors on the way. Managed to kill a few. Ran away from the rest. We were both stung.” She stares into the fire. “Kora was too little….”

The space behind Isa’s eyes is hollow and aching, her tongue feels too big in her mouth, and bile burns the back of her throat, from the story or the scotch. The buzz is beginning to wear off and she can just feel the thrum of aching muscles. _It’d be really good to lie down_ , she thinks, then realizes she is lying down.  
  
Sunny sighs shakily, coughs. “Great way to end your send off…”

For a while, there’s nothing but the crackling of the fire, the rustle of wind in the shrubs, the faint grunt and growl of geckos playing somewhere in the rocks.

And then, because she’s been feeling lonely these past few days, (getting shot in the head and waking up in a strange place with your world gone all topsy-turvy will do that to a girl). And because she can tell from the way Sunny’s sitting—bent knees and arms clasped in front like a shield, knuckles gone white—that this is something Sunny hasn’t shared with anyone in a long time, Isa says “I’m glad you told me.”

She puts a hand on Sunny’s shoulder; the woman looks at it, looks at her, smiles and briefly winds their fingers together.

The rest of their waking hours are spent talking of better times, better places—Kora at Christmas, Isa’s childhood trips with her father—until the lullaby of the scotch becomes too difficult to ignore and they drift off to the sound of geckos chattering in the hills, the faintest rumble of a new storm on the horizon.


End file.
